And then there was one. Co-scripted by Claude Sautet and José Giovanni, who wrote the novel on which one of the greatest of all prison noirs, Le Trou (1960), was based, Jacques Deray’s Symphonie pour un massacre (US: Symphony for a Massacre) tells the story of five Parisian criminals who collaborate on an elaborate drug theft but end up dying off one by one. The perpetrators are brilliantly performed by Michel Auclair (Clavet), Claude Dauphine (Valoti), Charles Vanel (Paoli), Jean Rochefort (Jabeke), and Giovanni (Moreau), but the real star is the script, which unfolds with near perfect simplicity and precision, the first double cross ending in murder, each remaining character earning our sympathy before his demise, the viewer’s moral compass all aflutter and confused with one exception: the one clearly evil character is ironically named Christian. Valoti’s two-timing wife Hélène (Daniela Rocca) represents the feminine threat, while Clavet’s wife Madeleine (Michèle Mercier), the only purely good character, will be the final judge.